


don’t want no other shade of blue (but you)

by blackberry_jam



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Because this is me we’re talking about the title is a Taylor Swift song, Coming Out, First Kiss, Homophobic Language, Idiots in Love, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25895860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackberry_jam/pseuds/blackberry_jam
Summary: “Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”- Langston HughesWhen it rained in Derry, it rained. It rained as if the sky was falling, rained until the trees were bowed down with the weight of water and the gutters bulged and overflowed.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	don’t want no other shade of blue (but you)

**Author's Note:**

> I read It, and this was born.
> 
> (Also, surprise, surprise, the title is a Taylor Swift song - it’s ‘hoax’ from folklore, so listen to that)
> 
> So, enjoy!

_ “Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.” _

_ \- Langston Hughes _

  
  


When it rained in Derry,  _ it rained _ . It rained as if the sky was falling, rained until the trees were bowed down with the weight of water and the gutters bulged and overflowed.

On these rainy nights, the best place to be was home. Preferably in your bedroom, with the space heater on and wrapped in at least two blankets as you sat at the desk, head bowed over homework.

On these rainy nights, the worst place to be was outside in the cold, where the rain drenched you to the bone, until your hair was soaked and your clothes clung to your skin.

The rain was beautiful, and as the wind shook the window pane, the droplets  _ tap-tap-tapping  _ against it, Mother Nature revealed herself in her most fearsome and dreaded form.

A thunderstorm.

But thunderstorms could be beautiful too. The bright flashes, as lightning zigzags past, cutting through the sky as easily as a knife slices through warm butter, and the thunder booms overhead, like some foreign god’s war cry.

But they were a different kind of beautiful, a deadly kind of beautiful. Mother Nature was beautiful the way a prowling lion was beautiful, a deadly glimmer in its eye. Mother Nature was beautiful the way lava, racing down the hill, was beautiful, a glowing source of death. 

And just like her older sister, The Night was beautiful, in that same deadly way. Things prowled during The Night, things too horrible to be named. They come out as the shadows fall, and they pounce. They pounce on unsuspecting victims. They pounce on the man, sitting with his only possessions, his dogs head in his lap. They pounce on the woman, distraught with the loss of her mother. They pounce on those in their most vulnerable stages, when they desperately cry for help, their pleads falling to deaf ears as The Night takes them for her own.

But above all this, The Night feeds on children. Children struggling with things they don’t understand, things they are scared of, and The Night, being the wicked villain she is, takes ahold of this naivety, this fear, and sinks her claws deep into them. 

It’s night time when the terrors start, when the chairs heaped with clothes become watching monsters, when the birds nesting in the roof become demons, scratching and hissing, when the mind creeps in in itself, twisting its owner into a panicky state.

The Night and Mother Nature work as most siblings do. Either helping each other the whole way, heaping their sister with encouragement and loving, or dead set against each other, snapping and fighting.

On the rainy, dark days, they work together. Mother Nature loves to show off, and rain is her favourite, and The Night loves the feelings of loneliness and depression that the rain evokes in the puny excuse of existence that is the human race, with its meaningless distractions, pulling themselves away from the inevitable thing that is death, coincidently their eldest brother, cutting a swift end to their short, short lives. 

And on the warm days, where the sun seems to stay out for hours longer than it should, are the days they fight. Mother Nature, just to spite her younger sister, does everything in her power to stop her from getting her way. She fights viciously, using up the very last of her energy to keep the sun up, before falling into a slumber, lasting years for her, and yet only hours in human time. The Night hates this. It cuts down her hunting time, as she is forced to stay in the shadows, and, by some queer force, the sunshine seems to make the people happy. They laze in the park, playing and chatting and laughing, everything The Night can’t stand.

————

As the shutters clatter downstairs, blown by the force of the howling wind into each other, each clap as loud and as swift as a swinging axe, the heavens open up and the rain begins to fall, harder than before.

The shutters keep clattering, seemingly louder and louder each time, breaking Richie Tozier’s concentration with each bang.

He found it hard to concentrate anyway, and the constant noise was only making it worse.

He scrunched up his face, pushing his thick glasses further up the bridge of his nose and hunching further over the science paper in front of him.

_ Label the diagram of a plant cell below using the following words:  _

Bang! 

  * _peroxisome_


  * cell wall


  * golgi apparatus


  * nucleus



Bang!

  * _central vacuole_


  * chloroplast



Bang!

  * _cytoplasm_


  * mitochondrion 



Bang!

“Oh, for fucks sake!” He cried, slapping his hands on the desk and pushing back his chair. He turned towards his slightly open door, shouting to his parents. “Can you  _ please  _ shut the fucking windows?”

There wasn’t a response, and the sound of the wind, the shutters and the rain seemed amplified.

_ Oh, right, they were out for dinner. _

He groaned, dropping his pencil onto the desk and getting up, clambering over his messy, unmade bed to get to the door.

He made his way way down the staircase, and into the lounge room, crossing the room and carefully shutting each of the windows, before closing the blinds for good measure.

It was only then he remembered the food his mother had left for him, sitting in a Tupperware container in the kitchen counter, shouting something about ‘making sure he ate it!’, as she gathered her bags and raced out to the already waiting car.

Throwing one last glance at the shutters, he exited the room, flicking off the light as he left.

Sliding along the hallway floors in his socks, something he was always scolded for, he slid into the kitchen, snatching up the plastic container and picking a fork out of the drawer, before opening it up and grimacing at the contents. Mac and Cheese. Normally, Mac and cheese would be fine, but he’s had it way too much these past few weeks, and it’s not even that nice, especially not cold. But his mum said he had to eat it, and she’d know if he hadn’t, so he regretfully took the fork and started picking through it.

The kitchen was filled with silence, the howling of the weather outside the only noise, except for the occasional scrape of the fork against the bottom of the container. He supposed he could practice one of the Voices, but in an empty house they sounded flat and empty, and anyway, talking to himself made him feel stupid.

After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. Richie sighed. His parents must be back early, and  _ of course  _ they forgot to take a key.

He dropped the fork into the half empty container and walked, quickly, towards the door, opening it up with a grand sweeping gesture.

“Good evening, good fellows.” He said, his eyes closed and his voice low and with a bad English accent, in what he called his ‘Toodles the Butler’ Voice. “How was your dinner, aye wot-wot?”

“Richie?” A voice who was definitely not his mother or father asked.

Richie opened his eyes, quickly.

“Eddie?” 

Eddie grimaced. His hair was lying flat, stuck to his head, and his shirt was clinging to his skin. 

“What are you doing here?” Richie asked.

“I, oh, shit, sorry,” Eddie stammered, shivering slightly. “My mum— I just had to get out of the house… and… I didn’t know where else to go, but I can go somewhere else, maybe Bill’s?”

Richie shook his head quickly. “No, no, come in.”

“You sure?”

Richie nodded, vigorously. “Yeah.”

“Your parents won’t mind?”

“The parents are not here.”

“Where are they?”

“Dinner.” Richie shrugged. “I think.”

Eddie nodded, and Richie stepped back, letting him into the foyer. Once inside, he smiled gratefully, as Richie shut the heavy door again.

“Do you have a towel, or something?” Eddie asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Richie said. “I’ll get one. You know where my bedroom is, right?” Eddie nodded. “Go wait there, you can borrow some of my clothes if you want… and are you hungry? We’ve got cold mac and cheese.”

Eddie grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”

“Hey.” Richie grinned, lazily. “I wash my clothes.”

“I meant the food, and you know it.”

Richie only smiled.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Do you want to talk about it?” Richie asked, glancing over at the other boy, sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Talk about what?” Eddie mumbled, hunching further into the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

“About why you came to my house, which I happen to know is at least a ten minute walk in normal weather, late at night on a Sunday evening in the pouring rain.” Richie prompted.

“Mumtriedtomakemetakethepillsagain.” Eddie said, quickly, his voice quiet.

“You’re going to need to speak up, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie scowled, before softening. “Mum tried to make me take the pills again.”

“You didn’t, though, did you?” Richie asked, leaning forwards.

Eddie shook his head, laughing humorlessly. “That’s the problem.”

Richie did something he didn’t often do. He waited, patiently.

“She got… pretty mad.” Eddie shrugged. “Normally she just gets upset, but she was just… angry tonight, I guess.”

“What happened?”

“She said some stuff…” Eddie trailed off. “Called me— she called me… a queer.”

“Oh.” Richie said, sinking back in his chair. 

Eddie nodded. “But I think—, Richie you have to promise you’ll still be my friend, okay? Promise.”

Richie nodded, quickly. “Of course, I—”

“I-I… I think she might be right.” Eddie said, his voice dejected and small. “I think I maybe do like boys.”

“Oh.” Richie said again.

“Yeah.” Eddie sighed, and the silence fell again. Eddie panicked. “So maybe something’s wrong. I don’t know, maybe I’m broken, maybe, I don’t know—”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Richie said, quickly. “Not broken. You’re not broken. Okay? It’s fine, it’s normal, it’s  _ totally and completely okay. _ ”

Eddie peeked up at him. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Richie sighed. “Of course.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

  
  
  
  


Richie dug out an old DVD, some rom-com movie, and put it into the player, plucking up the remote and flicking it on, as they sat back on the bed.

It was still raining, but it was completely and unequivocally normal.

“I think you have weird fashion sense.” Eddie said, halfway through the first movie.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Eddie continued, pulling out the front of the sweater he was wearing and showing it to him. “I mean, this is green and red. You should probably only wear this at like, Christmas.”

“You’re wearing it and it’s not Christmas.” Richie pointed out. 

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“But you look so cute in it!” Richie cried, reaching over to pinch his cheeks.

Eddie swatted his hands away, ducking away from his arm and groaning.

Richie smiled, as they fell back into comfortable silence as the movie kept playing.

After half an hour, Richie spoke up, somewhat nervously.

“You know what?”

“Mmhm?”

“I’m actually happy you like boys.”

Eddie looked over at him, a confused expression on his face. 

“‘Cause now I can do this.”

He rolled onto his side, leaning in and gently grabbing Eddie’s face. He looked at him for a second, and Eddie nodded, ever so slightly, and he leant in, connecting their lips.

The kiss was only a few seconds long, but as Richie pulled away, Eddie’s face was flushed and he hoped he didn’t look that red.

Eddie was silent for a few seconds. “Next time you kiss me, take your glasses off, they cut into my forehead.”

Richie smiled, and Eddie smiled back.

“Next time?”

Eddie nodded, before adding as an afterthought: “your fashion sense still sucks.”

Richie smiled even wider, as they both turned back to watch the movie.

At a slow point in the movie, as the girl ran to the airport, like a lovesick fool, Eddie broke the silence again.

“Want to go outside?” Eddie asked.

“In the rain?” Richie asked, sceptically.

Eddie nodded.

“Can’t you get, like, a disease from that?” Richie asked. 

“Yeah, like the flu.” Eddie shrugged. “And that’s like no big deal.”

“People have died from the flu.”

“Yeah, and people have died from eating cold mac and cheese,  _ constantly. _ ”

“No, they haven’t.” Richie scoffed.

Eddie nodded. “Scurvy.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “No, that’s like a sailors disease.”

“Try eating nothing but mac and cheese for, like, a month.” Eddie suggested. “You’ll get scurvy.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah, ew.” Eddie sighed. “So, rain - yay or nay?”

“Okay.” Richie shrugged. “Let’s do it.”

  
  
  
  


Richie laughed, wildly, throwing his head back, towards the sky, as the rain bucketed down, soaking his shirt and the rain running down his face. 

Eddie grinned, looking over at him.

“This is like, your best idea, yet!” Richie cried, spinning around and leaping into one of the puddles. 

Eddie shrieked, and jumped out of the way.

Richie only laughed, loudly.

Eddie hastily shushed him. “It’s like 10 o’clock, you need to be quiet.”

“Sorry, neighbors!” Richie shrieked. 

“Shut up!” Eddie cried, but he was laughing.

“Maybe if you kiss me.” Richie prompted, leaning down towards him.

Eddie pretended to debate it, before reaching up and grabbing his collar and pulling him down, connecting their lips again.

————

The Night growled, as the glow of light, and love and happiness radiated out, and she lost another of her potential victims. 

Although, the night was still young, and as long as the weather stayed dark and gloomy, she had a chance at seizing another victim, reeling them into her sticky web.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know how it went?


End file.
